Want your cremated remains blasted into space? Move to Virginia and get a tax break!

posted at 6:55 pm on December 13, 2011 by Tina Korbe

This story is more than a little out there — but that’s what makes it so fun to report! A Republican legislator in Virginia has proposed an $8,000 tax credit to go to anyone who agrees to be (posthumously) cremated and blasted into space on a rocket. Here’s The Washington Examiner’s Liz Essley, with more:

The bill, which goes before the General Assembly in January, is intended to help Gov. Bob McDonnell realize his goal of making Virginia “the number one commercial space flight facility in the nation.”

Virginia’s commercial space industry is already worth $7.6 billion in annual economic output and created 28,000 jobs, according to McDonnell. The state ranks third in orbital launch capacity, behind only Florida and California, according to a recent report commissioned by the state.

Kilgore’s bill would try to bolster that industry even more, even if it is just a small section of it. …

The state already offers a slew of benefits to commercial space flight companies, including corporate income tax breaks.

Apparently, just one company in the country presently does “space burials” on a regular basis. That would be the aptly-named Celestis, the founder of which says he frets this tax credit will inspire other companies to get in on the act and thereby up his competition.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to think of this. Maybe it was studying the solar system every year in grade school that did it, but I’ve always been rather fond of space — and, as a kid, I just assumed commercial space travel would be commonplace by the time I was an adult. From that standpoint, I sympathize with Gov. McDonnell’s space dreams.

But this still isn’t any different from any governmental attempt to make the fortune of an industry that otherwise wouldn’t take off by itself. It’s at the state level, at least, but it still seems a little — again — out there. If I were a member of the Virginia legislature, I’d vote “no” to this in January.

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Hey, no fair! It costs us plebeians $12,500 to get cremains shot into space when a rich guy like Gene Roddenberry got it for free…just because he created “Star Trek”. **grumble/sippin Hater-Aid/class warfare/grumble** :P

Hey, no fair! It costs us plebeians $12,500 to get cremains shot into space when a rich guy like Gene Roddenberry got it for free…just because he created “Star Trek”. **grumble/sippin Hater-Aid/class warfare/grumble** :P

My third, fourth, and fifth ex-husbands’ ashes are all in Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Black Label bottles, gathering dust on the mantel. Half your work is already done for you, and I can use the $24 thou as a down payment on a Hyundai Equus that my new fiance’ from Ethiopia (who I just met online, two weeks ago) has been hinting for. Of course, he’ll pay me back, when his trust fund kicks in.

Celestis has apparently launched two satellites into Low Earth Orbit, containing cremated remains. On the one hand, the fact that the ashes are not simply released is good, because it means that orbital space is not being polluted by more random dangerous junk (when cremated enough pieces stay whole that I wouldn’t want to run in to them in my spaceship). On the other hand, in 20 years orbital decay will put this stuff right back on earth after a spectacular burnout. Wow. Two cremations for the price of one.

Now, when they figure out how to shoot the cremains (or entire freeze-dried humans for that matter) to the Moon, where they will remain forever, that might be worth something in terms of making a contribution to history.

I’ve told my wife for many years it is my desire that, when I die, my corpse be placed in a hermetically sealed, reflective capsule and shot into a high orbit around Earth so that future generations of my family can look up into the night sky and see the glint of the sun shining on the capsule and that, if possible in the future, I might be brought back to life. However, I always knew it would be unaffordable and an unwise use of my life insurances proceeds… until now. Virginia, I’m coming home!